—God bless Trump.
Hugs. Cries. The doors of the Federal Detention Center in Washington have just opened. Jake Lang comes out, dark beard, same color shirt. Hug a friend who is waiting for you. They put a Bible in his hand. It goes … to those around him, who acclaim him. He has just been pardoned by Donald Trump.
—We are back, we are the patriots. We don’t have to hide in the corners of Facebook and Instagram, being censored. We have X, we have Trump, we have Elon Musk. Freedom.
Lang, whose full name is Edward Jacob, 25, is originally from Newburgh, New York, and was arrested by the FBI in January 2021 for his role in the looting of the United States Capitol on January 6. He was still awaiting trial, accused of 11 crimes.
He himself contributed to his own arrest: he published photos and videos on social networks that showed him outside the Capitol, and in one of his messages he wrote: “I was the leader of freedom today. Arrest me. “They are on the wrong side of history.”
That fateful January 6, Lang put on a gas mask, grabbed a baseball bat, tore a police officer’s Perspex shield, and began banging on a door to the Capitol to enter it and, along with an uncontrollable mob, , try to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Then he denounced police violence, with a bloody head: “This is the second American revolution.”
Lang still maintains that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election by a wide margin. His arrest was part of a broad federal operation to identify and prosecute those responsible for the attack, which left five dead, two in the same looting and the rest, agents who later committed suicide, traumatized.
Jake Lang, with his girlfriend Rachel Myers, talking via video call with his mother
Reuters
Moments after being sworn into office, President Trump granted pardons to nearly everyone criminally charged for their role in the assault on the Capitol. Of the nearly 1,590 people prosecuted, only 14 were excluded from pardons, mainly members of the violent and extremist militias Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who, however, saw their sentences markedly reduced.
A large number of them were detained in Washington, where the looting occurred and where the trials are being held.
Among the beneficiaries of those pardons are Enrique Tarrio, former leader of the Proud Boys, whose 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy was overturned, and several people convicted of attacking officers with objects such as pipes, sticks and chemical spray during the assault.
The pardon also included an order for the U.S. attorney general to withdraw pending cases related to the attack. Trump justified the measure as an act of “national reconciliation” and called the investigations into the assault a “grave national injustice.”
After those pardons, and despite the polar cold this week in Washington, the crowd already began to gather in front of the Washington detention center on Monday, with temperatures below freezing. At first everything was uncertain about deadlines and next steps, but soon the detainees began to leave.
Another of them, Robert Turner, 42, immediately proclaimed his love for Trump. «President Trump, I love you. We will always support you. You supported us; we will support you. We are ready for a new country, ready for a great country, and I feel good. I feel incredible. “We should all feel amazing.”
Turner was already convicted, and had appealed the verdict. He was found guilty of several charges, including assault, for using physical force against officers while advancing inside the Capitol with the crowd, and obstruction of an official proceeding, for trying to stop the certification of the election results.
In recorded conversations obtained by the police, Turner acknowledged having called for a revolution and recounted in detail how he attacked the officers at the critical moment of forcing the doors of the Capitol.
These releases have gone down badly among the police unions in Washington, especially between the agents who guard the Capitol and the local police, who cooperated in security on January 6, 2021.
They believe that a serious injustice has been committed. For example, Agent Mike Fanone, who was trying to protect the Capitol when he was dragged by protesters, who beat him and attacked him with a stun gun.
Fanone suffered a heart attack and ended up resigning from the police department. One of his attackers, Daniel Rodríguez, pleaded guilty to several federal charges, including wounding an officer with a weapon, and was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.
He is another one who has been totally pardoned. “I feel betrayed,” Fanone told NBC on Tuesday. “I feel betrayed by my country.”
#insurrectionists #heroes #Capitol #detainees #streets
